I’m pretty sure I’m in the small minority here but I personally feel like apologies are a better fit for accidents and miscommunications. If you steal from someone, cheat on someone, intentionally harm someone, etc. saying sorry doesn’t do much for me because if you were sorry, you wouldn’t have done it in the first place. I appreciate the apology, but that doesn’t move me. Trust is always regained through actions, not words. Perhaps you could argue that a person has a “change of heart.” Maybe that might make the apology more valid. But idk
I’d say if the person is legitimately working to improve themselves and aspiring to not be the sort of person who would do such things, then there can be a point to an apology.
I do hate “I didn’t mean to _____” in situations where they clearly 100% did mean to. For instance, saying “I didn’t mean to hurt you” after saying hurtful things rings extremely hollow. Like, if they said hurtful things to you in the heat of the moment, then in that specific moment, they 100% did mean to hurt you. Even if it was less than a second before they regretted it, they wouldn’t have said it unless they didn’t mean it the way it came out, they didn’t realize it was (that much of?) a trigger for you, they had some disorder that made them say it, etc. In which case “I didn’t mean to hurt you” is a reasonable way to start an attempt at reconciliation. But if they’re pissed and say something hurtful, it’s because they want you to experience pain/punishment. “I was an asshole and I said things that I wish I hadn’t; I’m sorry.” is a better way to go in that situation. (Really, I think using the actual word “sorry” in an apology can make it come across more sincerely, so long as the rest of the apology is sincere and not some bullshit non-apology.)
Maybe it’s just a quirk of the English language that people use “I didn’t mean to…” and “I’m sorry for…” interchangeably in such cases even though the most literal interpretations of the two constructions are quite different.
Also it’s not as if there’s only way to dodge actually apologising. “I’m sorry you felt hurt” or whatever is pretty bullshit, I think.
But yeah. I think in general considering whether the literal words of your apology are strictly true when apologising is a good way to make your apology not come across as empty platitudes.
And I can definitely think of at least one time when I’ve been “apologised to” but really they were just sluffing off responsibility for anything. Usually when people do that to me I smile and accept their apology, but privately I’m thinking something like “yeah, this is the closest thing to an apology I can really expect from this self-deluded douchebag” and I’ll remember that shit for the future.
